


Gravestones and Stepping Stones

by actualcoolcat



Series: Recovery comes with Relapses [4]
Category: Marble Hornets
Genre: Acceptance, Coping, Five Stages of Grief, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Healing, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Impromptu Funeral, Mental Health Issues, Post-Canon, Recovery, Tim forces himself to accept his friends are gone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-16
Updated: 2020-07-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:28:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25301626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/actualcoolcat/pseuds/actualcoolcat
Summary: “Give sorrow words. The grief that does not speak whispers the o’er fraught heart and bids it . . . break.”(Macbeth, Act IV, Scene 1)Moving on was hard, but not moving on meant stagnating in hopeless routines. Acceptance was not an easy task, and recovery wasn't always streamline. But Tim still had to, for the sake of everything he left behind.
Series: Recovery comes with Relapses [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1751296
Kudos: 4





	Gravestones and Stepping Stones

**Author's Note:**

> well I'm back at it again! needed to take a step back, but back with some more Tim content. We made it to the breaking point, time to crawl back up. I've already finished a portion of the next installment, so that should be less of a wait.
> 
> this series exists loosely in order, but it's not necessary to read the previous fics to be able to read this one. They're independent entries that chronologically occur in order but over the course of weeks/months. recovery isn't always a straight line.

\---

What was the definition of insanity again? Doing the same thing over and over and over and over—

Right.

Not the time to let his mind wander.

Tim was trying to process. Trying to process himself with… himself. There was a lot buzzing through his mind, incoherent thoughts and impulses winding him taut. He needed to sort this out.

Time came to him more as small glimmers of reality, than as one solid streak of order. He spends his waking moments trying to forget his greatest failures, and every evening clawing at his skin as nightmares reminded him of things he never could forget.

Why did he keep expecting a different result?

He tries to focus on the current moment, the only portion of time he had any sense of grasp or control over. Tim stares down at his cell phone, the digital light harsh against his eyes as they readjusted from the darkness surrounding him. _Physically and metaphorically,_ he supposes. What a bleak sense of humor he had developed. The screen has a crack running across the front of it, the result of falling against concrete and underbrush one too many times, but the name and number was still legible despite the crack. What was he even hoping to accomplish? What good would any of this even do?

What would Jay do?

…

Tim sets down the phone, running his hands over his face and rubbing at his eyes. He couldn’t be rash and just run into things, make everything worse like he usually did. He needed to organize his thoughts, needed to develop a plan that wasn’t just keeping his head down and hoping that nothing bad was going to happen. That clearly wasn’t doing him any favors, and it was probably only making his mental state worse. He needed to reach some form of acceptance—of the situation, of himself, of his mistakes. He couldn’t keep running like this, it wasn’t honoring the lives or memories of his friends. ( _Of the friends that only he can remember. Of the friends that their families will spend the rest of their lives wondering what happened to their sons and daughters)_. Tim didn’t know if he could ever really forgive himself for the grief and loss that he inadvertently caused, but he can’t let the sacrifices of his friends be for nothing. He needed to do better. He couldn’t keep moping around in his personalized pity party, no matter how bleak he saw his own outcome, no matter how much he wishes he could change the past… he has to start moving on. To heal. To get closure. At the very least, even if he doesn’t feel like he deserves it he can rationalize to himself that he’s less… infectious, the better kept he is, the more medicated, the less anxious… Though such things were easier said than done, as he’s tried throughout his life.

Mental illness—whether it stemmed from a chemical imbalance in the brain or the knowledge of a supernatural monster stalking your entire existence, or both—you couldn’t just wake up one day and decide to not let it get in the way. _“Just stop being depressed, life’s what you make it, you just need to exercise, get more sunshine, try smiling”_ well intended encouragements just came off as blows to his self-worth. Clearly something was wrong with him if it was really supposed to be that simple. But you can’t really know what it’s like unless you’re living through it yourself, and everyone had different methods of dealing with their demons; some more severe than others.

At least now he knows what’s been causing so much of the turmoil through his life, and that offers a bit of hope for preventing more needless suffering. At the start of college, he had no idea what was really wrong with him. Didn’t know how much danger he was putting people in by getting close to them. At least now, even if he had to learn it like he did, he knows what measures he needs to take and the consequences of not being careful. Maybe things could be different, and he clutches onto that little bit of hope. The last glimmer he has for living a _(not normal, not happy)_ maybe peaceful life.

Tim knows he should get back into therapy, but that seems like an impossible task. Maybe he can bring it up at his next doctor’s appointment, see what options are available. He hates the idea of being slipped a pink piece of paper and going back into a ward, and just the thought of that outcome makes his mind immediately panic and shut down such an idea. Besides, therapy could only do so good when you can’t discuss the real root of your problems _(“yeah I killed a man that was responsible for killing a bunch of people, but it was honestly my fault it all started because you see there’s this creature that follows me around and it got caught on film one day”)._ But even just having an outlet to talk about Tim’s current life, his Moving On life… He knows it could be helpful.

He adds therapy to the backburner of what he needs eventually. For now, he could work on some of the smaller things like… getting what closure he can, and taking responsibility for the mistakes he left behind. He knows that’s something he needs to do, before he gives into the guilt entirely. Before he becomes too hollow of a person, wearing the skin of a liar and pretending at being human. Everything was terrifying and overwhelming and just so impossible to accomplish. He was lucky to get out of bed and show up at work; if the threat of being homeless and without his medication wasn’t hanging over his head he wonders if he even would bother. But he can’t keep going on like this, and he wishes he had someone to save him from himself. He doesn’t, and he can’t, but he still had to do this. At least for the sake of those who died. And that was just enough to push him to try.

But first, he needed a cigarette.

\---

The next day, Tim buys flowers at a local store. He doesn’t speak to anyone, just silently purchases the white lilies and gets back into his car. He drives for a while, the afternoon sky a murky shade that threaten to rain. Tim keeps his eyes on the road, steering wheel gripped tight as he drove down gravel roads and turning off onto dirt.

He arrives at a cemetery, an older, run down place with twisting trees he tries not to watch for movement. He grabs his keys and the flowers, leaving the rest of his belongings locked in the car. Walking around he notes there doesn’t appear to be any other visitors currently, and Tim tracks down the groundskeeper. He asks if there are any unmarked graves or mass memorial stones in the lot. The groundskeeper gives Tim a strange look, but directs him nonetheless to a plot in the northwest grounds of the cemetery. Thanking him, Tim walks off in the direction he was pointed to.

As Tim reaches a patch that he decides is decent enough for what he hoped to accomplish, he slows down. His legs felt like lead, eyes staring down at the mass graves that marked the dates of many victims, whether from sickness or war he wasn’t sure. Tim gives them a moment of silent respect.

When he speaks, his voice is rough and quiet. He licks at his lips.

“…I guess this is more for me than for any of you. That’s usually what funerals are like anyway, right? Loved ones grieving and reminiscing over the memory of the dead. I know you’re gone. I filmed it. I know it happened. I have those memories and I’m reminded every night of them. But it still… I guess it still doesn’t feel real, y’know? Like I’m still holding on... And I am, and I will be, I don’t want to forget about any of you. That’s the part that is for you, the not forgetting and the accepting and the trying to do better like you all deserved. But I needed some sort of physical gesture, I guess, to really start moving on. That I can’t keep running away and pretending that it didn’t happen, because that’s not fair to you all. You _fucking died_ and I lived and I’m the one that’s trying to pretend none of it happened? That’s fucked up. That’s _wrong_. That’s not honoring any of you, that’s spitting on your graves and the sacrifices you all made…

“I will always feel guilt for what I did. For everything I did. For what I should have and shouldn’t have. I know I don’t deserve forgiveness from any of you or anyone for the things I did. But if I don’t at least try to make some peace with myself… it’s just going to get bad again. People are just going to get involved again. And I don’t think the solution is so easy as just ending my own life. It’s still going to spread regardless of me… But maybe I can help people, maybe I can get to a point where I’m under control and people won’t get sick just by being near me. I don’t know. But… but I feel like I should try. Because I just feel like shit being the last one alive and all I’m doing is wasting the gift I wish I could have given to any one of you guys instead. It’s not fair.

“I didn’t know all of you that well, but the ones I did… I loved you. I loved you _so much_ and you’re gone and I miss you so much. I wish I wasn’t here alone. I wish you were here with me. I wish we could go back to how things were and that none of this had happened. Everyday that’s something I wish with my entire being I could change…

“I know I can’t, and I know that’s something I need to accept. But it still hurts. I don’t think I’ll ever stop missing you.”

Emotions come spilling out as the words leave his tongue, and the ache in his chest is both painful and freeing. He pours his sorrows out to the chipped stone and quiet trees, bares his heart in the solitude of gravestones. He doesn’t know if his words actually reach who they’re meant to, but it felt cathartic to release the emotions he’s been bottling up the last few years. Tim wipes at the salty tears trailing down his cheeks, urges his legs to move as he knelt down, placing the flowers down near the grave plaque. He hiccups, voice raw and remorseful as he spoke down to the plaque.

“Jay. Brian. Alex. Sarah. Seth. Amy. I hope you aren’t suffering anymore… I’m sorry for what I caused… I accept my fault. I swear I’m going to do better. I won’t let anyone else get dragged into this again… I won’t forget any of you.”

He knows it does nothing to close the hole in his chest; too little too late. He had been through the stage of denial, of not accepting what had happened, that it must have just been some twisting of his mind, a hallucination of his psyche. But it had been long enough, and they really were gone. Brian really was the one under the hood, Tim really left him to die. Jay bleed out. Alex gasped his last breathes choking on his own blood.

Tim isolated himself, screamed out his frustration to abandoned halls and burnt down hospitals, mourned in his own self-deprecation. He was angry, depressed, wanting to do anything he could to revert time and do everything different. But he knows he can’t, and it had taken him long enough to get to this point. This was hardly scratching the surface of what he needed to set straight in his life, but it was a start. Finally.

“I’m _so sorry_.”

He could never fully heal. But he could move forward and accept reality. One agonizing, stumbling step at a time.

\---

A few hours pass as Tim remains knelt in the soil, recalling regrets and memories, repeating them to the chilling air. He forces himself to say goodbye, to accept, to carry them in memory. He repents, he promises, he makes amends. It’s as much closure as he’s able to achieve, and he only leaves once the gathered storm clouds begin to drizzle down against him. On his way back to his car, Tim lifts his tear-streaked face to the sky, lets the rain soak him clean and wash away the pain of yesterday.

It was a start. A change, with different results. Life held no guarantees, but tomorrow was another day.

\---


End file.
